Francois al-Hajj

Francois al-Hajj (28 July 1953-12 December 2007) was a Major-General of the Lebanese Army who was assassinated in 2007.

Biography
Francois al-Hajj was born on 28 July 1953 in Rmaich, Bint Jbeil, Nabatiye Governorate, Lebanon to a family of Catholic Maronites. al-Hajj served in the Lebanese Army during the Lebanese Civil War, leading positions north of the Litani River during the war with Israel in South Lebanon. From 1988 to 1989 he fought under Michel Aoun against Syrian forces in the free zones of West Beirut, and in 2000 he led the defeat of Takfir wal-Hijra in the Dinnieh clashes. In the summer of 2007, he fought in the Nahr al-Bared camp against the Fatah al-Islam militant group, and in 2008 he was one of the candidates for President of Lebanon against General Michel Suleiman. However, Suleiman was elected, and al-Hajj remained a Major-General. On 12 December 2007, al-Hajj was assassinated in the Baabda suburb of Beirut by a remote-controlled bomb, and Hezbollah called his death "a great national loss". Fatah al-Islam was suspected by some as the perpetrating group of the attack, but the methods of the car bombing were too sophisticated for the group; some politicians blamed Syria and Iran for the assassination, as Damascus had been blamed for a series of political murders in Lebanon over the past few years.